Monday, April 30, 2012

Campaign Hooey

During the Abe Lincoln canvass, candidates for the
presidency were much interested in bonding emotionally with the working class.

They were even more interested in displaying their military
badges and ribbons. At one point, Lincoln became so put-off by the imposture
that he openly ridiculed, as only Lincoln could do, the grand military hustle
of the Democrats. Lincoln’s own military service in the Black Hawk War, three
enlistments of about 30 days each, was refreshingly free of heroism. Following
the hostilities, Lincoln’s horse was stolen. He and his companion, George
Harrison, were compelled to walk and canoe back to New Salem.

Lincoln, of course, was born in a log cabin, though he
managed to ease his way into a comfortable middle class berth as a fairly
prosperous lawyer.

George Washington
-- net worth: $525 million, a cool, half billion in in today’s mostly worthless
currency – rates as America’s most wealthy president. Next in line is President Thomas Jefferson,
net worth $212 million; followed by Teddy Roosevelt, net worth $125 million;
followed by Andy Jackson, the father of the Modern Democratic Party, at a net
worth of $119 million; followed by James Madison, net worth $101 million;
followed by Lyndon Johnson, net worth $98 million; followed by Herbert Hoover,
net worth $75 million; followed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, net worth $60
million; followed by Bill Clinton, net worth $38 million; with John Kennedy
bringing up the rear as the 10th most wealthy U.S. President. Mr. Kennedy did not inherit his daddy’s wealth;
most of his income and property came to him through a family trust shared with
his siblings. Among the top ten wealthiest Presidents,
there are but two Republicans in the bunch, and none of this great wealth, much
of it held by Democrats who married well, was a bar to the presidency.

If the Father of the Country ever felt the need to put
himself forward to electors as a chip off the old middle class block, he
manfully resisted the temptation. Jefferson thought of himself as an enlightenment
aristocrat; ditto Madison, the father of the U.S. Constitution. FRD’s wealth
came to him through marriage and inheritance, and when he ran into difficulties
with creditors, his mommy bailed him out. For the notable Democratic presidents
listed above, great wealth was no bar to public service.

Here in Connecticut, the state’s all Democratic
congressional delegation is studded with multimillionaires. Like Franklin
Roosevelt and John Kennedy, U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal married well; his
wife’s father owns the Empire State building in New York, among other
properties. Though U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro often points to her humble roots, she
also is a multi-millionaire, and U.S. Representative Jim Himes made his
millions on Wall Street not Main Street.

Military service remains for some politicians a springboard
into politics. When Mr. Blumenthal sought to inflate his military record during
his many campaigns as attorney general, he backed into a truth grinder, and it
was discovered that, unlike the more modest Lincoln, Mr. Blumenthal had forseveral years been stealing valor
from servicemen who had fought in Vietnam.

His opponent in the race for the U.S. Senate, Linda McMahon,
financed her previous campaign from her private fortune. Mrs. McMahon’s great
wealth did not come to her through marriage. She and her husband, both
bankrupted at one point, earned their riches though enterprise and hustle. And
though she never claimed to have been born in a log cabin, Mrs. McMahon’s
hardscrabble trajectory does not resemble that of the one percenters who ascended
to the presidency. Of course, the differences between Mrs. McMahon and Mr.
Lincoln are too apparent not to have been noticed by Connecticut’s vigilant
media: One was the CEO of a wrestling empire and the other was a politically
astute lawyer from Sangamon County in Illinois well known in the frontier towns
for his wrestling prowess.

Claims of modest birth still play well on the stump, even
among millionaires operating outside the shadow of the largely mythical log
cabin. A military record helps. The anti-authoritarianism lying at the center
of libertarianism still tugs at the heart strings, as does an American as apple
pie anti-clericalism, which lies at the center of the war on Catholicism being
waged by Planned Parenthood and Connecticut’s Democratic congressional
delegation, 100 percent of whom have received from the abortion provider a
rating of 100 percent on votes important to Planned Parenthood’s money
prospects.

Most political claims are gilded hooey, sometimes honeyed
hooey, but always entertaining. It’s best during national and state campaigns
to take the advice of Mark Twain and swallow the campaign braggadocio with “a
ton of salt,” and then, when slipping into the slough of despond, reach for
Henry Mencken: “A national political campaign is better than the best circus
ever heard of, with a mass baptism and a couple of hangings thrown in… A
newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy
crazier.”